


By and By

by earthseraph



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Doctor!Cas, Established Gabriel/Sam Winchester, Firefighter!Dean, Hospital, It's all fluff, M/M, Marriage, books and stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-17 11:25:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1385875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthseraph/pseuds/earthseraph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not sleeping for around 72 hours is the worst thing you can ever do- but when there's a hot doctor willing to save your ass then maybe it's the best thing you can do.</p>
<p>----</p>
<p>“And you’re not even supposed to be awake until five more hours.” the man muttered, flipping through a clipboard. </p>
<p>“Well,” Dean sighed, “i’m up now so you can let me out.”</p>
<p>“You may discharge yourself if you please. But I don’t think that’s smart of you.”</p>
<p>Dean frowned tensed, “And who are you to be telling me what’s smart or not?”</p>
<p>The man walked further into the light, “I am Castiel and I am your doctor.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	By and By

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trickster_Demon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trickster_Demon/gifts).



> This is a birthday fic for [Trickster_Demon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Trickster_Demon) hope it's what you wanted c:
> 
> Unbeta'd
> 
> Enjoy!

Dean could feel himself nodding off. The weight of the entire week falling on his body like dead weight, eyes burning with the want of sleep and lips slightly parted where his body is telling him to just put his head back against the couch and sleep like a normal person. 

And he would do that.

But he promised his brother he’d go and meet his boyfriend of four months. So sleeping was out of the question even though he just ran a 72 hour shift at the station and hasn’t got more than four hours of shut eye in those 72. 

“You don’t have to come if you're too sleepy.”

Dean groaned internally. If it were anyone else he’d just roll over on the couch and fall right to sleep for a good twelve hours- but it’s Sam. And he could hear the pitying tone in Sam’s voice, right next to the tinge of sadness. Besides, he promised. And Dean’s never broke a promise in his life and he wasn’t about to start now. So, he opened his burning eyes and rubbed them. Willing the sleep to go away. And got off the couch. 

“You mind if I go in my uniform? I really don’t feel like changing or i’ll pass out while putting my pants on.” Dean wasn’t in the full uniform, only navy blue pants and a white t-shirt with blue bolded letters spelling out ‘FIRE’ in all caps.

Sam shook his head, “It’s fine. You sure you want to go? You can always meet him another time.”

Dean rolled his eyes and turned to the door, “If I meet him some other time then i’ll actually be fully awake which means that he’ll get even more of my wrath and then you’d be boyfriend-less.” Dean decided to ignore anything more Sam was going to say and walked out of their apartment. 

He waited for Sam at the elevator, watching the little numbers flash when an elevator got at a certain floor. He could feel himself slightly swaying with drowsiness, his feet firmly planted on the floor but his body moving back and forth like a tower in Chicago. Dean’s mind felt like it was swirling, like all his thoughts were in the process of melding together and churning. Dean turned and looked down the hallway- Sam wasn't walking down yet- and then leaned his body on the wall by elevator. He could feel the tired and ready to sleep in his body, and besides- the wall feels nice. It’s cold and has a slightly stubbled texture, he can feel the little bumps through his shirt and against his bare arms. It’s almost like those jade-ball beds he had to lay on when he got a knot in his back worked out. 

Dean opened his eyes when he heard their door close (the chain lock hitting the door when it closes because Sam doesn’t like having only one lock) and pushed himself away from the wall. He’s able to have his eyes wide open like he got a good eight hours of sleep when Sam sees him, and proceeds to push the button to get down to the first floor. 

“Where did you say we were meeting him?” Dean asked when they’re out of the elevator.

“The little cafe down the street. No driving necessary.”

Dean shot his brother an unseen side glace. Sam really expected Dean to walk somewhere in the hot weather of Palo Alto? Like Dean doesn’t deal with enough heat in his life.

\----

By the time they get to the cafe Dean’s even more ready to pass out than earlier. The heat beating down on his back was like a reminder of his job, making him break into a slight sweat and squint through the blaze. But now, the cafe’s nice and cool. A brisk splash of air on his slightly dewy arms and face. It makes him want to go curl up in the couches by the corner and close his eyes. 

Dean feels Sam tap his shoulder and turns around to follow him through the cafe. They end up walking to a small corner table where two guys are sitting. He’s seen Gabriel before so he knows that Gabriel’s the blonde guy with the mocafrap in his hand. But he’s never seen the other man.

The other man is sitting across from Gabriel. His hair a mop of mess, eyes focused down on a book in his lap. His features are sharp, sharp nose and cheekbones, eyebrows dark and jagged like a painter was angry and pressed hard against the canvas. The only thing that wasn’t all that jagged were his lips, they were plump and chapped and looked better than the drink that Gabriel had in his hands. 

Sam cleared his throat, “Gabe, Dean.” 

Gabriel stood up and pushed his chair out, “Hey, Dean-o.”

Dean raised his eyebrow, “It’s only been a second and I already don’t like you.” he took Gabriel’s hand and gave it a firm shake. 

Gabriel smirked, “Well, Moose sure likes me.”

“And what an unfortunate thing that is.” Dean muttered, pulling his hand away.

“You’ll love me soon enough! Anyways, Moose and Deanie meet my cousin, Cassie.”

‘Cassie’ finally looked up from his book. 

Dean kinda’ wished he kept his eyes on the book because now he could see how fucking amazing they were. They were like cornflowers in a thatch of green grass back in Kansas. Stunning and all mighty. He felt like he could spend hours just staring into the blue of his eyes and still never be content with ‘cornflower blue’ because the blue just wasn’t _right_. It was too bright of a blue, but then not bright enough.

“It’s Castiel actually.” He stood up from his seat and shook Sam’s hand, bypassing Dean’s entirely. 

Dean noted that the man was one or two inches shorter than him, that his hands were sunkissed and perfect. Long fingers, blunt nails and knuckles that looked like they could bust your lip in a heart beat. Fucking. Perfect. 

When Castiel offered Dean his hand Dean took it. His hands were slightly cold in some areas while the others were warm and homey. His hand shake wasn’t all bad either; it was firm and official- like he’s been shaking hands for his whole life. 

When they broke their long hand shake all four of them sat down. Sam on Gabriel’s side with their hands delicately laced and on the table, Dean on Castiel’s side with his body relaxing in the chair and Castiel going back to the book in his lap.

Dean blinked a few times, trying to remember where he was, when he saw Sam slightly frowning at him.

“You sure you okay, Dean?”

Dean nodded, “Yeah, fine.” he stifled a yawn in his throat and cleared it, “So what do you do, Gabriel?”

Gabriel shrugged, leaning back in his chair, “A little this and a little that. I’m majoring in..”

Dean felt like Gabriel’s voice distorted and muted it self. He could see Gabriel’s lip and free hand moving as he talked but he couldn’t make out what he was saying. He felt his eyes lids get heavier with sleep and body become a dead weight. He saw Sam’s expression go panicked and then saw the world go sideways. The floor in contact with his face.

And when he closed his eyes all he heard was a rough, “It’s okay, I’m a doctor.” and then the world went blank.

\----

Sam sighed and rubbed his temples. They were in the waiting room of Stanford Medical Center, Gabriel holding his hand while he tried not to fume at the fact that his brother is an idiot. 

After Dean fell over, past out cold (with what Castiel diagnosed as exhaustion and bodily shut down) on the floor of the cafe they promptly called the hospital. 

And Sam found out two things that day: One, Gabriel’s cousin is a head doctor at Stanford Medical Center. Two, Dean will do anything for Sam even if it means meeting his boyfriend even though he was running on too little hours of sleep. 

As much as Sam loved that about his brother- he wished he’d take more care of himself. He put out fires for a living, moved away from their hometown to support Sam through college and even gave up his own college fund to help them settle down in the expensive-as-hell California. All he wanted was for Dean to maybe pamper himself a bit, go out on a date- hell, just take a weekend off and tinker with the Impala if he wanted too. 

Sam moved and leaned his head on Gabriel’s shoulder, “Dean is such an idiot.”

Gabriel shrugged slightly, “I mean, no duh yeah. But, he did it for you.”

Sam had told Gabriel all about Dean when they first met. Gushing about how much Dean’s done for him, how Dean puts out fires in town, out of town and even set controlled ones when the heat got too bad. He told them about how when they were little it was always them two against the world. How their mom died when Dean was only four (the fire of their mothers death making Dean want to save people from the same heartache) and that he took Sam and ran out of the house, not caring that the fires could burn him, but only that Sam was safe. How their dad wasn’t ever really there because he was a high up in the Military and had to make them nomads every once in a while but then always taking them back to Kansas so they could be in the familiar for just a little while. How when dad died in an airplane crash when Dean was only eighteen and Sam was only fourteen Dean fought for the right of Sam so they wouldn’t get separated in some screwy adoption home and made a home for them with all of dad’s Military benefits. 

So it would figure that Gabriel would be nonchalant to the whole thing of Dean passing out in a diner and hitting his head on the urban-chick bare concrete floor. 

“I guess.” Sam muttered, sitting up and pulling Gabriel to him because Gabriel was too short to lean on and he wasn’t about to put a crick in his neck for wanting some warmth and comfort. Sam smiled slightly when Gabriel fully complied, not caring that they looked slightly odd together but purring like a kitten who just got cream when he molded with Sam’s side. 

Gabriel shrugged, eyes on the ceiling, “Well, you should have just tied him down on the couch and made him sleep or something.”

“He’s an expert at getting out of things.” 

“... Sleepy-pills?”

Sam looked down at Gabriel, “I am not about to drug my brother.”

“Well you just might have to.” 

Sam looked up at Castiel and exhaled, “How is he?”

Castiel looked down at his clipboard, “He has a minor concussion from hitting the floor so hard and his body is tired.”

“Is that bad?”

“Yes and No.” Castiel flipped over the paper on his clipboard, “It’s bad in that because he hasn’t had much sleep his body’s reboot system is lacking. It’s not just him that’s tired but everything in him too. It’s not bad because his concussion was only minor and we have him being monitored while in an induced sleep. I will be the person watching over him.”

“So he will get better, yes?” Sam questioned, eyebrows pulling in.

Castiel nodded and tucked the clipboard under his arm, “Yes. He will.”

Sam let out a relieved sigh, “Thank god.”

“Thank god, indeed.” Castiel muttered and turned on his heel, walking away from Sam and Gabriel.

“Is he always like that?”

“What? Kinda’ bitchy and seemingly moody? Yeah.”

Sam nodded and yawned, “Do you think Dean would mind if we went home and just slept?”

Gabriel snorted, “I don’t think he’d mind if you missed his funeral because it’s you.”

\----

Dean groaned and blinked his eyes open and closed. 

He wasn’t sure where he was. He could smell cleaning products and sterile floors, he could hear a small beeping from beside him and he could feel two oxygen plugs in his nose.

Why the fuck is he in the hospital?

Dean looked around the dim room and saw a figure reading in the corner, “Hey, why am I here?”

The figure jumped slightly before getting up from the chair and setting it’s book down, “You’re here because you passed out from sleep deprivation in a cafe and hit your head hard on concrete floor.”

Dean frowned, he knew the voice from somewhere but he couldn’t put his finger on it. 

“And you’re not even supposed to be awake until five more hours.” the man muttered, flipping through a clipboard. 

“Well,” Dean sighed, “i’m up now so you can let me out.”

“You may discharge yourself if you please. But I don’t think that’s smart of you.”

Dean frowned tensed, “And who are you to be telling me what’s smart or not?”

The man walked further into the light, “I am Castiel and I am your doctor.” he grabbed a syringe from the table next to Dean’s bed and pressed it into Dean’s IV. 

And with that it was dark again.

\----

Dean woke up to what he assumed was a few hours later. The room was darker than before and it was only him this time. No doctors-slash-cousins-slash-hot guy to bother him about when he should or shouldn’t leave. 

Dean sighed and closed his eyes. His head was slightly hurting and he was tired again. Maybe pulling three day shifts aren’t all that anymore. Maybe his body was trying to tell him to take a small break and live off of some of his savings for a while so he could rest. 

Because what’s the point of working if you’re dead? 

Dean opened his eyes when he heard the sound of feet walking into the room- it was he doctor-slash-cousin-slash-hot guy. 

“How was your sleep?” Castiel rumbled, looking at the heart monitor and back at his chart.

Dean looked up at Castiel and sighed, “Fine. Thanks for drugging me.”

Castiel chuckled, “I didn’t drug you.”

“Mmmhmm, you sure did. You went all creepy bar guy that wants to get in my pants.”

“If I wanted to get in your pants then I would have asked.”

“Well then,” Dean smirked, “do you want to get in my pants, _Doctor?_ ”

“When I do I’ll ask.”

Dean gaped as Castiel walked out of the room. He was always the aggressor in the relationship. Always. He was never one to pine but now this doctors gone on with his lab coat and stupid book that he always carries and is making Dean pine. 

And Dean is not okay with that.

\----

The next time Dean sees Castiel is when he went out for a spontaneous book hunt. 

He had just gotten discharged from the hospital not two days with a prescription for headaches and to sleep more. (When he showed his boss at the station he got a stern look and a kick to the butt telling him to go home and rest for two weeks with paid days.) And he was bored. He wasn’t used to being at he and Sam’s apartment all too much. He was used to being with about twenty or so other guys and girls at the station. Noise surrounding him and not an empty vacuum of silence like what was waiting for him back at home. 

So he decided that getting a book should keep him occupied for a good two weeks if not longer. He hadn’t read a new book in ages. He kept to his Hemingway and Vonnegut, not going outside the small box he drew around his feet until today. 

The book store he went to was a little family run one. The smell of old and worn pages filling his nose like pastry dough at a cafe. He could feel the nice and welcomed quietness of the place, unlike Barnes and Noble where all the books were new and the quiet was more reinforced than at the little mom and pop place he was at. 

Dean gazed up at the signs of genres hanging from the ceiling. He wanted something that could take him on an adventure and make his mind wonder. Nothing too serious that could keep him up at night but something like when he was a little kid and he’d be excited for sleeping because his mom would tell him stories before bed. Her voice warm and soothing even when she lowered it so she could be Papa Bear. So Dean walked to the fantasy section. 

He thought about picking up Tolkien- but realized that he already had a copy at home. There was more from the selection; some like Harry Potter or Twilight. But then one book caught his eye. 

It was thick and had a creamy brown cover. The book didn’t have any readers flaps on the inside but had a picture of a little girl sitting on a tree stump with a dress on. Dean flipped the book over to the spine and read the side, _Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland_.

Dean smiled slightly. His mom used to read this to him. Only getting through a few pages a day but still he remembers her voice forming to the words of Alice’s and the lines of Lewis Carroll. 

Dean nodded to himself and placed the book under his arm. He’d only been in the store for no longer than ten minutes and decided to walk around. 

He walked into the historical section when he saw a familiar lab coat and mop of hair sitting on the carpet with a book in his hand. Dean felt a smile grow on his face; the doctor looked cute. He was intensely staring at the words on the page of his book like they held the word of god and had a small blue pen smudge on his cheek. Dean took the few short steps and sank to the floor by Castiel. 

“How can I help you?”

“You’re number maybe?”

Dean smirked when Castiel put his book down and looked up at him with a small frown and head tilt.

“Why?”

Dean shrugged and picked up Castiel’s book, “ _The History of Bees Around The World_ , really?”

“It’s interesting.” Castiel pouted, trying to take his book back.

“No, judgement. I mean look-” Dean handed his book to Castiel, “I’m going to read freakin’ _Alice in Wonderland_.” Dean let Castiel take the book out of his hands and watched as his fingers caringly caressed the font of the title and ran across the spine. 

“This is a wonderful book. Did you know the reason Mad Hatter wore a hat was because he was addicted to Cadmium and put the paint on his head so it could go into his brain, thus making him go crazy.”

“Thanks for ruining my childhood and telling me that my favorite character is actually a druggie.”

Castiel chuckled and placed the book in his lap, “I did not mean to ruin your favorite character for you.”

Dean nudged Castiel with his shoulder and slightly relaxed into the warmth of the other man, “It’s cool. I mean- you did pretty much save me, right?”

“It’s my job, Dean.”

Dean shook his head, “So? You could have just left my case with some other dude but you didn’t.”

Castiel shrugged slightly, “I’ve just heard from Gabriel how much you do for Sam. With knowing that it was easy to figure out that you’d over work yourself and stop at nothing to make your bother happy. Even if that meant going without much needed sleep.”

Dean blushed slightly at the comment, “I’m not all that. I just keep my promises.”

Castiel hummed and got up from the hard carpet, he turned around to face Dean and pulled a little card out of his pocket, “Then promise that you’ll call me and go on a date with me?”

Dean took the card and smiled, “I don’t break my promises.”

\----

_Four years later.._

“Do you promise to love each other in sickness and health?”

“Yes.”

“Dean, do you promise to always love Castiel?”

Dean slipped the ring on Cas’ finger, “I never break my promises.”

“And Castiel, do you promise to always love Dean?”

“Forever.” And slipped the ring on Dean’s finger.

“You may now kiss your husband.”

Dean cupped Castiel's face ignoring the tears dropping from his eyes and leaned into to kiss him. 

They shared a small chaste kiss before the church erupted in cheering and cooing. Dean laughed and leaned his forehead on Cas’, “So, forever?”

Castiel nodded, “Forever.”

“Promise?”

“I think you’ve rubbed off on me because I never break my promises.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if it was too fast paced. 
> 
> (the Mad Hatter thing is true though. It's just like what Van Gogh did except that he ate the paint.)
> 
> [My Tumblr](http://earth-seraph.tumblr.com/)


End file.
